Austria's first Hercules enters modernisation programme

 The UK's Marshall Aerospace and Defence Group has begun a maintenance and modernisation programme on the Austrian air force's first Lockheed Martin C-130K tactical transport, under a deal announced in late 2011.

Now undergoing work at the company's Cambridge airport site in eastern England, the Austrian aircraft is one of three to have been acquired from surplus UK Royal Air Force stocks in 2002.

Originally delivered between 1967 and 1968, the K-model Hercules will receive new avionics equipment "to address obsolescence issues and to overcome operational restrictions in European airspace", Marshall says. Additions will include electronic attitude director and horizontal situation indicator displays, an updated autopilot and a new standby flight instrument, it adds.


"Work on the three aircraft will be performed in line with maintenance inputs, with delivery and return to service of the third aircraft expected in early 2015," the company says.